Old Navy

[Brian James]

Armoured Cruiser USS Brooklyn pictured at Vladivostok during the Russian Intervention c1920.

[Brian James]

Chacabuca Class Protected Cruiser USS New Orleans (Ex BNS Amazonas) pictured c1898: two ships which were being built for the Brazilian Navy at Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth Shipyards at Elswick, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, The Brazilian Navy had ordered four Elswick Cruisers, but had already sold the first ship during construction to Chile as Ministro Zenteno. One ship was delivered to Brazil, named Almirante Barroso. The third ship was fitting out as Amazonas, and the fourth was on order as Almirante Abreu.(Re-names USS Albany). On March 16th 1898 the USN purchased the undelivered ships to prevent them being acquired by the Spanish Navy and to augment the US Navy shortly before the Spanish-American War.

[Brian James]

Troop Transport USS Louisville pictured in the Hudson River in 1918..She was a transatlantic passenger liner built by William Cramp & Sons Building & Engine Company, Philadelphia and was launched on November 12th 1894; sponsored by Mrs Grover Cleveland, wife of the President of the United States; and entered merchant service in 1895, under United States registry for the International Navigation Co., of New York City with her maiden voyage between New York and Southampton, UK. She was acquired by the USN during the Spanish-American War and commissioned under the name USS St Louis in 1898, and again during WWI under the name USS Louisville from 1918 to 1919. After she reverted to her original name in 1919, she burned in 1920 while undergoing a refit. She was scrapped in 1924 in Genoa.

[Brian James]

What did you do in the war daddy?.....The heads of the US Navy's Camouflage Section, Everett Longley Warner (left) and Harold Van Buskirk (right), in a room where scale model camouflage-painted ships were stored before being tested c1917.

[Brian James]

7000 Ton armour plate steel bending press pictured at Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Yards at Pennsylvania on September 12th 1918.

[Brian James]

14 inch guns and turret pictured under construction at Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Yards at Pennsylvania in 1918.

[Brian James]

Rifling a 14 inch gun barrel at Bethlehem Steel Corporation Shipbuilding Yards at Pennsylvania in 1918.

[Brian James]

The Great White Fleet pictured in Waitematā Harbour, Auckland in 1908.

[Brian James]

A corner of the Bethlehem Steel Company Ordnance Proving Ground at Cape May, New Jersey, pictured on October 17th 1918.

[Brian James]

Forging naval armour plate under a 14,000 ton hydraulic press at Bethlehem Steel. The plate in process of being forged is seen between the two uprights of the press and being at a white heat, looks like a flat cake of ice, October 17th 1918.